Are we there yet? How long will your journey take on Dublin’s new bus network?

Online map allowing commuters to plot future journeys set to go live this Thursday

The National Transport Authority say that for some users the proposed changes “may involve their bus going a different way to their destination”. Photograph: Alan Betson/The Irish Times

Commuters in the Dublin area will from Thursday be able to see for themselves how they will fare under the National Transport Authority’s Bus Connects proposals.

The authority has published an online interactive journey planner which allows users to plot their existing journey and see how it would be changed under the proposed system.

The tool is being made available as the authority begins to engage in a series of public meetings on the proposals including at Liffey Valley on Friday, in Dundrum on August 23rd and Stillorgan on August 31st.

The interactive tool’s features include:

* A “where can I go?” option. This enables users to click on a location and the map will show where the user can get to in 30, 45, or 60 minutes , including the average waiting time at the start of the trip.

* A “show routes” feature. This displays all the proposed new routes which allows a user to see each individual route highlighted by hovering a cursor over it. It is designed to help people explore the changed network and see how they could make trips within it.

* The tool also shows you the change in the number of jobs or school enrolments that commuters can reach in up to one hour, compared with the number of jobs or school enrolments within reach under the current route map.

The authority has also published a comparison table listing every existing Dublin Bus route and the routes that would replace it under the proposed plan.

The interactive map is aimed at reducing widespread concern – reflected at a recent meeting of the Oireachtas transport committee – in relation to the changes, which the authority says will affect all bus users in some way should the proposals be implemented.

“For some, that may mean no more than a change in the number that appears on the front of their bus,” said the authority. “For others, it may involve their bus going a different way to their destination. In a small number of cases, it may require a passenger to interchange from one bus to another.”

The authority said almost one million people live within 400m of a bus stop on a route which will run at a frequency of every 15 minutes or better, an increase of 31 per cent.

Key spine routes are to be labelled from A to G and will have branches that go off the main routes – for example, route E will go southbound along the N11 with E1 turning at Foxrock towards Dún Laoghaire while E2 goes on towards Bray.